A LONELY BIT OF ENGLAND.
THERE is a terrace on the high ground of Oullins, below Lyons, whence one sees the confluence of the Rhone and the Saone, and marks the distinctness of their several colours, and their rate of motion, for many a mile down the conjoint streams. Looking from that terrace across the broad lands towards Switzerland, one also beholds a yet more beautiful object, with the charm of chance about it, too, for it is only under certain conditions of weather that the clouds on the fax horizon part and lift, and the monarch of mountains stands dis- closed between the mist-curtains. Of a similar order is the spectacle which may sometimes be seen from the shore of Barnstaple Bay, when, after the jealous clouds have shrouded it for weeks, it may be, they drift away, and the grand and lonely Lundy Island rears its scarred and riven-granite cliffs from the fretted sea. When the island, which for mystery and loneliness might, until lately, have been a speck in the far Pacific, though it lies in the midst of the Bristol Channel, emerges into sight it sometimes wears a mystic aspect still, for bands of fog will float, ribbon-like, along the front of it, hiding now the heads of the cliffs and leaving the beach clear, and again reversing that order ; and as the mist is not thick, but vapoury and transparent, it produces mirage-like effects, and the outlines of . the island and the ships sailing under it are lifted and distorted. But when Lundy stands fully revealed in the sunshine to its rare visitors, it presents an aspect as romantic and imposing as can be desired. It is formed of " a lofty table-headed granite rock., surrounded by steep and occasionally perpendicular cliffs, with grisly seams and clefts, and hollowed out along the shone into fantastic coves and grottoes, with huge piles of granite thrown in wild disorder." Sea-birds whirl, like driven clouds about the cliffs, cluster in the crannies, and balance them- selves upon the waves, filling the air with the hoarse screaming, which makes so fine a harmony with the voice of the sea. Like a majestic solitary fortress the island stands, with "the graves of the giants" for its hidden treasure, the relics of innu- merable wrecks for its trophies, and the Templar Rock for its unrelieved sentinel ; for when the mist lifts off Lundy, there juts out from a projecting point an enormous mass of granite, pre- senting so perfect a resemblance to a man's face, under the head-gear of the Knights Templars, "that one can scarcely believe that it has not been touched by an artist's chisel." The outlying rocks are of strange shapes, and have their several names recorded in the early scant history of the lonely island which has touched the life of the mainland ia some of its most troublous times. The Constable, the Gannett, and the Seal Rocks describe themselves by their names, and one of the great curiosities of the island is the Seal Cave, a vault sixty feet in height and twelve in width, with a sandy bottom at its inner part, gradually rising and getting narrower and darker until there is scarcely room to pass, and then suddenly opening into a spacious and lofty chamber, to which the seals resort. Another is the extraordinary cavity known as the Devil's Limo- kiln, on the south-west of the island. " This opening," says Mr. Chandler, in his monograph of Lundy, " consists of four walls of granite ; the north and south sides being perfectly smooth planes or faces of rock, which gradually narrow, as they descend, into a funnel-shaped opening, having at its bottom two diverging passages or tunnels communicating with the sea. The other two sides of this chasm are absolutely perpendicular, but the surfaces of the granite are partially decomposed, and broken by joints and fissures. The depth of this remarkable pit is 370 feet."
In Drayton's " Polyolbion," he describes Lundy Island as "a lusty, black-brow'd girl, with forehead broad and high ;" this " forehead" is the broad, steep, oven slope, green or russet-brow; according to the season (for it is covered with ferns), rising to the flat summit, which would answer to the top of the head of the black-browed girl. That slope of ferns above the cliffs two hundred feet high, with a rampart of bristling granite boulders between them and the sea, the outlying islets, the tossing fringe of foam, the whirling legions of sea-birds, the everlasting booming of the sea in the caves, the effects of light in the moist atmo-
sphere, form a scene of grand and solitary beauty, which gains upon the imagination by the associations with human fate belong- ing to the island, within whose nine miles' circuit are girt many romantic and terrible memories. No place on earth, perhaps, has seen quite so many wrecks. Laying aside the theories which may be formed as to its prehistoric inhabitants, upon the suggestive basis of the giant skeletons which were discovered in their stone coffins in 1850 ; and the supposition that the island—the ancient Herculea—may have seen a settlement of the Norsemen upon it, its actual history is full of a turbulent romance, the immemorial characteristic of the Montmorency or Monte Marisco family, to whom it belonged in the eleventh century. Rebellion and piracy were the occupations of the de Marisco holders of Lundy, whom two kings seem to have vainly en- deavoured to dispossess, until, in 1245, after the execution of Sir William de Marisco, for rapine and violence of various kinds, the island was declared forfeited to the King (Henry III.), and Henry de Tracy was made keeper of it. The de Mariscos turned up again, however, under Edward I., but in the time of Edward II. Lundy was granted to the King's favourite, Hugh Lord le Deapenser, and the King, flying from his Queen and the Barons, attempted to take refuge there. He was prevented by a contrary wind, and the frustration of his design is quaintly recorded in 'Westcote's " History of Devonshire." The only historical remains on the island date from the de Morisco times. The massive and extensive ruins of the castle show that it must have been an important fortress. 'The caves and subterranean pas- sages in its neighbourhood, the mounds, and the round towers are probably relics of the sway of these pirate nobles, and illus- trative of the lawlessness of the time, as well as of the natural strength and importance of the island."
In the Great Rebellion, the little island again became important in the West country, after a long period during which it figures merely in the annals of piracy. Governor Bushel's holding-out against the summons of the Parliament to surrender, his corre- spondence with Charles I. on the subject, the King's remarkable letter, and Richard Fiennee's account of the condition of the garrison, conveyed in his report to Sir Thomas Fairfax of the delivering up of the island, form an exceedingly striking episode of that stirring history. The island was given over to Lord Say and &le, who claimed it on seemingly obscure and uncertain grounds, and would appear to have profited little by his gain, for Echard, the historian, narrates that after he had lived to see his ambition defeated by the supremacy of Cromwell, he sought a voluntary retreat, or rather imprisonment, in the Isle of Lundy, where local tradition has it that he died. Then, for a long time, Lundy became again the resort of pirates, and in the reign of Queen Anne it fell for a time into the hands of the French, who used it as a privateering station during that brilliant interval in which they made such a number of prizes that they called Barnstaple Bay " the Golden Bay." With the villainous episode of "Benson's convicts," the historical career of Lundy comes to a close. Lonely as Lundy is even now, this daring deed seems almost impossible, and it certainly vies with any of the former transactions which rendered the place notorious, Benson, who rented the island from Lord Gower in 1748, was an eminent merchant at Bideford, and M.P. for Barnstaple. In 1749, he entered into a contract with Government for the exportation of convicts, and gave the usual bond to the sheriff to transport them to Virginia or Maryland, " which," says Mr. Chandler, " was the simple mode of getting rid of convicts in those days." But the clever contractor took his consignment no further than Lundy, where he employed them on the island, lodging them in the old fort, and locking them up every night when they returned from their labour. When, having been detected in smuggling, insurance frauds, and indeed every kind of commercial villainy which the conditions of trade at that time admitted, Benson was at length called to account, he strongly defended himself on the convict question, declaring that so that he took the convicts out of Eng- land, it did not matter, Lundy or America fulfilled his contract equally. Of late years, the disastrous speculation of the Lundy Granite company. has been the chief incident of the history of the island, which passed through the hands of several proprietors, including the late Sir Aubrey do Vere, to those of Mr. Heaven, who now resides there. Occasional visitors go to Lundy in the summer season, and occupy the deserted cottages which were built for the labourers during the working of the Granite Company. The isolation of the wild and beautiful island, between which and the mainland there is still no regular communication, will probably not last much longer. Trinity House sends a skiff to Lundy from Clovelly
twice a month, there is postal communication via Instow every alternate Thursday, and it is in contemplation to extend the telegraph from Clovelly. Excursion steamers take parties to the island ; a signal-station is in contemplation. These things are all ominous ; a little while, and the pirate rock fortress, which shows itself only by gleams and glimpses from out the mid- channel mist, will doubtless be annexed to the adjacent islands of Great Britain, and included in the programmes of Messrs. Cook and Gaze.
Previous page
